About six years ago, my only son was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It had taken my husband and I two years before we had a name for our son's illness. Our son is now twenty-five, and has been hospitalized at least five times over the past six years.

As parents we didn't understand and didn't know what bipolar disorder was, and had never been faced with a situation like this. We didn't know how to help him and felt helpless. I had no idea where to turn or who to talk to. My husband and I started to blame ourselves and each other for his illness.

As a parent, you want to shield your child from hurt and painful situations -- to protect him at all costs. Many nights my husband and I took turns staying up at night watching him. We were afraid to sleep for fear of not knowing what he might do. He changed into someone who felt like a complete stranger. When we looked at him he seemed normal, and sometimes we would try to tell ourselves all of this was a bad dream.

His behavior became more and more out of control, and he became aggressive. Most of that aggression was towards his father. He would start arguments, scream for no reason, stay up half the night, talk out loud for no reason that we could think of.

We wanted our son to be home where we could protect him, and where he would be safe. We stopped going out, stopped spending time with each other, and grew apart, because we could not come together on the best way to handle the situation with our son.